1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer-processor based method and system for creating a dynamic interactive graphical user interface (GUI) for a videoconferencing system, method, and a computer program product having telepresence features that visually presents how a video layout of a multi-screen video conference will be experienced by the users prior to the initiation of the telepresence videoconference.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional videoconferencing systems include a number of end-points that communicate real-time video, audio and/or data (often referred to as “duo video”) streams over and between various networks such as WAN, LAN and circuit switched networks.
A number of videoconference systems residing at different sites may participate in a same conference, most often, through one or more MCU's (Multipoint Control Unit) performing, among other things, switching rate conversion, and transcoding functions to allow the audiovisual terminals to intercommunicate properly. The MCU also allows for aggregate presentation on one display of several end users located at different endpoints.
A compression of multimedia data to be transmitted, as well as a decompression of the multimedia data to be received, takes place in a processor unit conventionally referred to as a “codec” (coder/decoder).
As videoconferencing involves various resources and equipment simultaneously interoperating at different places with varying capabilities, there is also a need as recognized by the present inventor for the possibility to manage the resources involved both for scheduled and ad hoc videoconferences through a video conference graphical user interface (GUI) of a controller.
Video conferencing systems presently provide communication between at least two locations for allowing a video conference among participants situated at endpoints at each location. Conventionally, the video conferencing arrangements are provided with one or more cameras. The outputs of those cameras are transmitted along with audio signals to a corresponding plurality of displays at a second location such that the participants at the first location are perceived to be present, or face-to-face, with participants at the second location.
Telepresence systems are enhanced video conference systems. Typically, terminals in telepresence systems have a plurality of large scale displays for life-sized video, often installed in rooms with interiors dedicated for video conferencing, all to create an environment as close to personal face-to-face meetings as possible. The images captured by the plurality of high-definition cameras are usually arranged and displayed so that they generate a non-overlapping and/or contiguous field of view. This is in contrast to traditional so-called “Continuous presence” where the video streams are mixed (e.g. a mosaic) in an MCU from source images at endpoints and displayed together on one display in a screen split (N*M array).
Video cameras are often arranged on top of the display screens in order to capture images of the local participants, and are transmitted to corresponding remote video conference sites.
Key factors in achieving a feeling of presence are the ability to see at whom the remote participants are looking, that all the participants are displayed in real life size, and that all displayed participants appear equally sized relative to each other. Another provision for achieving high quality telepresence is that the images of the remote participants are presented to each local participant as undistorted as possible.
In order to obtain this feeling of presence, a set of rules, or a proprietary protocol, is used by the telepresence systems such as that described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/050,004. That set of rules (or protocol) defines e.g. camera positions (pan, tilt zoom), codec connection scheme (which local codec should call which remote codec), etc. In known telepresence systems, the user dials (or selects from a phonebook) the remote telepresence sites (and/or other video endpoints) he/she wishes to join in the conference. When the call is launched, the system decides how and where the different remote sites are displayed on the local displays. This may, for example, depend on call sequence (e.g. in a four-site multi-site call the first called site is displayed on the left screen, second called on center screen, and third called on right screen), or it may appear to be totally random.
This automatic call launch may not result in a layout as desired by the user. Suppose that one of the remote sites in a four-site multi-site call is the Board of Directors of a company. The other two remote sites are of ancillary status. The caller would most likely wish to have the Board of Directors displayed on the center display, undisturbed and unobstructed. This is almost impossible to control in current systems in an easy and user friendly way.
The eye-contact issue, and the feeling of participants from different sites being present in the same room is not fully resolved in conventional systems, as they capture the same picture and send the same to all the sites, thus making the movements of the participants look unnatural when they face a certain display (and associated camera) to talk to the participants displayed therein. Furthermore, with these telepresence systems, there is no conventional mechanism for interconnecting different telepresence sites that are located on different networks. Moreover, firewall traversal limits the ability to seamlessly establish connections between different telepresence sites. Thus conventional telepresence systems have been restricted to dedicated, high-bandwidth communication lines. Conventional telepresence systems are usually standalone systems that are not well integrated with other computer resources and video conference resources within a particular company's facilities. Users of these telepresence systems are handicapped by having relatively limited amount of flexibility in adding other non-telepresence systems endpoints, and establishing calls between telepresence endpoints and other non-telepresence endpoints.
Other conventional systems like that described in WO 2007/140459 describe certain camera and display screen associations to provide a blended space effect. However, as recognized by the present inventor, there is neither a tactile display present within reach of a user to pre-assign images of users at remote facilities to particular screens, nor a controller that operates on user input to make the pre-assignments.
Moreover, conventional systems have a user operate/configure the videoconference system via a non-graphical remote control as the connections are being made. This makes for a frustrating experience for users not familiar with the telepresence system at hand, particularly when an urgent meeting is about to begin.